Measuring ‘toughness’ How would candidates fight terrorism?

In a post-September 11 world, testing a presidential candidate’s mettle in dealing with terrorists will no doubt rank high on the ledger of vote-determining factors for most Americans. “Toughness” is a characteristic driven more by perception than objective criteria, but those impressions — good or bad — will play a major role in who next occupies the White House.

With the first caucuses and primaries only three months away, we took a “toughness quotient” snapshot of several leading Democratic and Republican presidential candidates. The survey of 820 registered voters was conducted September 5-11, 2007 (margin of error +/- 3.4 percent). We asked the following question: “Now I’d like to read to you the names of some candidates running for President of the United States. For each one, I’d like you to rate how tough that person would be in standing up to dictators and terrorists and addressing difficult national issues. Please rate each person on a scale of one to seven, with one meaning not tough at all and seven meaning extremely tough. If you don’t know enough about the person to rate him or her, just say so.”

The results shed some interesting new light on the field. First, among the Democrats, Sen. Hillary Clinton receives the highest percentage for both the toughest and not tough at all ratings, and the lowest percentage saying they do not know enough to rate her stoutness. The low percentage of those saying they “don’t know” how to rate Mrs. Clinton is particularly striking, especially compared to other candidates on the list. Nearly a third of the voters (29 percent) rate her either 1 or 2 (extremely tough). Twenty-one percent rate Sen. Barack Obama as a 1 or 2, while only 13 percent perceive John Edwards as extremely tough.

On the Republican side, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (40 percent) and Sen. John McCain (36 percent) lead the pack on the toughness quotient, not only outpolling other GOP candidates, but scoring the highest numbers among the candidates of both parties.

The high percentage of “don’t know” responses for former Sen. Fred Thompson and former Gov. Mitt Romney are also intriguing. This poll was conducted around the time Mr. Thompson first entered the race, and the high percentage without an opinion about his toughness might be a reflection of his recent official launch. The numbers for Mr. Romney seem consistent with his performance in other national polls. While the former Massachusetts governor leads in early primary state polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, he is not well known yet by Republicans across the country and certainly not by all registered voters in a national survey. His high percentage of “don’t know” on this survey reflects the larger familiarity issue Mr. Romney still faces on the broader stage. Those numbers for both Mr. Romney and Mr. Thompson will come down as the campaign unfolds. The critical question is where they move.

Evaluating a contender’s toughness in standing up to dictators and terrorists will no doubt weigh on voters’ minds next year. Mr. Giuliani and Mr. McCain capture the highest voter accolades on that question right now, while Mrs. Clinton generates the most polarizing reactions in the sample. She leaves few in doubt, with some believing she’s the toughest among the Democrats and others feeling just the opposite in this early but critical snapshot.